May i just say from the outside to read your letters are really refreshing and inspiring. Your year sobriety comes across as you think and write so clearly. I can see what is happening for you on your journey.

I want to try and paint a picture Re your brother. You say he feels a "ton of shame"....and just like Blightys dear ole Big Ben chiming midday, so that went of in my head for him.

I see alcohol addiction like a "burglar". So in your mind you see the chap, stripey black and white top, (never can see how that image can about worldwide), with his eye mask on, creeping away with some kind of "horror film laugh/smirk" carrying his bag of SWAG, over his shoulder. Re SWAG.....RE alcohol. The burglar?....guilt and shame.

If ever there was a reason why a alcoholic can not stop, is them both. We become the person with the SWAG, (SWIG?) over our shoulders, and as long as we have our "loot" we are ok.

It takes real courage, "real" meaning that which comes from our hearts, to put the SWAG down.

Nagging.

My dear Rockinsteady, my brothers and sisters here nagged me for years!!! If they had not, well, i would not be here.

It was not nagging though. If you, Rockinsteady love your brother as you do, you are simply doing the best you can with your love and support. IF....if feels like nagging to your brother, then that is his bag frankly. Love does what it does.

That does not sound terribly positive, yet it is. I have worked with quite the most amazing therapist over the last year, (yet another one), this one quite different. The times when it appeared to him, "nothing was getting through"...it was....not then....yet it did.

You are not nagging, you are loving.

All of this said, YOU have to be important and loving to you too. You have your own journey, your own challenges, your own life.

One final answer to your question, "...was it actually helpful for people to keep asking how you were doing?"..........for the drinker?.......no...it's a pain in the ******* arse. And i would have got quite defensive, and if that did not work, aggressive.....

Yet if you, or they had not, i would be dead.

Nagging? >>>>> Saving lives.

Just don't forget to nag yourself!

Be peaceful, be healthy and be strong. Loveness to you dear Rockingsteady